The Opening

Reclaiming the freedom to choose in an age of manufactured faith

Yesterday we exposed the spectacle preacher. The controlled opposition. The outer wall of the castle built from critique itself. We saw how the system doesn’t just silence dissent; it platforms safe versions of it, turning confrontation into content, channeling righteous anger back into consumption.

Both tactics serve the same end. The embarrassment strategy suppresses. The spectacle strategy redirects. Either way, the board stays intact. The pieces keep moving. The castle walls stand.

But the walls will not stand forever.

Something is coming that neither suppression nor redirection can contain. Something that doesn’t negotiate with systems or accommodate structures. Something that shakes everything shakeable until only the unshakeable remains.

The Promise of Shaking

The writer of Hebrews recorded a promise that should stop us cold:

“At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.’ This phrase, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of things that are shaken, that is, things that have been made, in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.” (Hebrews 12:26-29)

Yet once more. One more shaking. But this time not just the earth. The heavens too. Everything that can be shaken will be shaken. Everything that has been made, every human construction, every system built by hands, every structure erected in the name of God or against Him, all of it will be shaken until only what cannot be shaken remains.

This is not a threat. This is a promise. And it should fill us with hope.

The shaking is how God separates the real from the counterfeit. The unshakeable from the temporary. The kingdom that cannot be moved from the kingdoms we’ve built in His name that were never His to begin with.

Why Shaking Is Mercy

We’ve spent twelve days exposing walls. The content flood. The invisible fence. The spectacle preacher. The mise-en-scène. The curated gospel. Layer after layer of construction designed to keep you on the board, consuming photographs of bread, silent or safely vocal, never actually free.

How do you escape walls you can’t even see? How do you leave a system that’s convinced you it’s reality? How do you step off a board when every square looks like the only ground there is?

You can’t. Not on your own. The walls are too high. The deception is too thorough. The system is too skilled at absorbing resistance and redirecting energy.

But God shakes.

The shaking is mercy because it does what we cannot do for ourselves. It exposes what was hidden. It destabilizes what seemed permanent. It cracks the walls that kept us in and collapses the floors we thought were solid.

The shaking feels like destruction. It is salvation.

“See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven.” (Hebrews 12:25)

The warning comes before the shaking. The shaking comes for those who refused the warning. But even then, the shaking is not primarily punishment. It’s exposure. It’s the removal of hiding places. It’s God loving us enough to collapse the structures we trusted instead of Him.

Both Castles Fall

Here’s what we haven’t fully reckoned with yet: the shaking doesn’t just expose Babylon’s castle. It exposes ours.

We’ve spent this series looking outward. Naming the puppet masters. Identifying the strings. Tracing the systems of control. And all of that is real. The enemy has built walls. The compromised church has constructed systems. The curated gospel has trapped millions.

But we’ve built walls too.

We’ve constructed our own refuges. Our own sense of having figured it out. Our own identity as the ones who see clearly while others remain blind. We’ve built a castle called “discernment” and furnished it with critiques and positioned ourselves safely inside, looking out at the deceived masses with something that feels like concern but might be closer to pride.

The shaking doesn’t spare our constructions just because they’re made of better materials.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)

Our hearts built walls too. Walls of self-righteousness. Walls of theological certainty. Walls of “at least I’m not like them.” The same heart that was deceived by Babylon is capable of deceiving itself about having escaped Babylon.

The shaking comes for all of it. Not just their walls. Ours too. Not just the obvious idols. The subtle ones. Not just the systems out there. The systems in here.

This is why the shaking humbles everyone. No one stands confidently when the ground moves. No one points fingers when they’re struggling to stay upright. The shaking levels the field. It puts everyone in the same position: dependent, desperate, reaching for something that won’t move.

The Sifting

The prophet Amos saw this dynamic centuries ago:

“For behold, I will command, and shake the house of Israel among all the nations as one shakes with a sieve, but no pebble shall fall to the earth. All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, who say, ‘Disaster shall not overtake us or meet us.'” (Amos 9:9-10)

A sieve. The shaking is a sifting. Everything goes through. Nothing is exempt from the motion. But what falls through and what remains depends on what it’s made of.

The pebbles don’t fall. The genuine remains. What’s real passes through the shaking and comes out the other side still intact.

But notice who dies: those who say “disaster shall not overtake us.” Those who assume they’re exempt. Those who watch the shaking happen to others and think their walls are different, their castle is secure, their position is safe.

The shaking comes for the confident. The comfortable. The certain. Not because confidence and comfort are sins, but because they become hiding places. Places where we stop depending on God and start depending on our position, our understanding, our tribe.

Haggai’s Question

In the days of Haggai, the people had returned from exile. They were rebuilding. The temple was going up, but it was smaller, less glorious than Solomon’s original. The older generation wept, remembering what had been. The younger generation wondered if this diminished version was all they could hope for.

Into this moment, God spoke:

“Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the LORD. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the LORD. Work, for I am with you, declares the LORD of hosts, according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. For thus says the LORD of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, declares the LORD of hosts.” (Haggai 2:3-7)

Yet once more. The same phrase Hebrews quotes. The shaking that’s coming.

But notice the context. God isn’t speaking to the wicked. He’s speaking to the faithful. To those who’ve returned. To those who are building. To those who feel like what they’re constructing is small and insignificant compared to what was lost.

And He says: be strong. Work. I am with you. My Spirit remains. Fear not.

The shaking isn’t meant to paralyze the faithful. It’s meant to liberate them. The shaking removes everything that isn’t God so that what IS God can be clearly seen. The treasures of the nations come in. The house gets filled with glory. But first, the shaking.

Neutrality Ends

The shaking forces a choice.

When the ground moves, you can’t stand still. You either grab onto something or you fall. You either reach for the unshakeable or you go down with what’s shaking.

This is why the shaking is an opening. Not just destruction. An opening. A crack in the walls. A gap in the system. A moment when what seemed permanent is revealed as temporary and what seemed impossible becomes available.

Every great movement of God in history has come through shaking. The Exodus happened because Egypt was shaken with plagues. The early church exploded because Jerusalem was shaken with crucifixion and resurrection. The Reformation happened because medieval Christendom was shaken with corruption so obvious it could no longer be ignored.

The shaking creates the opening. The opening is where God moves.

But the opening requires response. The Israelites had to walk through the Red Sea. The disciples had to leave the upper room. Luther had to nail the theses. The shaking creates opportunity. It doesn’t guarantee outcome.

“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” (Hebrews 3:15)

Today. The shaking is happening. The walls are cracking. The systems are destabilizing. Can you see it? Can you feel it? The question is not whether the shaking will come. The question is what you’ll do when the ground moves.

Will you grab onto Babylon’s collapsing walls, trying to prop up what God is bringing down?

Will you grab onto your own castle, the one built of discernment and critique and spiritual superiority?

Or will you reach for the kingdom that cannot be shaken?

What Cannot Be Shaken

Not every wall falls. Not everything shakes loose. The passage is explicit: the shaking removes what can be shaken SO THAT what cannot be shaken may remain.

There is an unshakeable kingdom. A foundation that doesn’t move. A reality that survives every tremor.

What is it?

Not your theological system. Systems can be shaken.

Not your church structure. Structures can be shaken.

Not your community, your movement, your tribe. All of these can be shaken.

Not your understanding. Not your certainty. Not your position.

What cannot be shaken is the kingdom of God. The rule and reign of Jesus Christ. The reality of His death and resurrection. The truth of His word. The presence of His Spirit. The love from which nothing can separate us.

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)

That’s unshakeable. Not because we hold onto it tightly enough. Because He holds onto us.

The shaking reveals what we’ve actually been trusting. If we’ve been trusting Babylon, we’ll panic when Babylon shakes. If we’ve been trusting our own constructions, we’ll panic when those shake. But if we’ve been trusting Jesus Christ, we’ll find that He doesn’t shake. He remains. He holds.

The Consuming Fire

The passage ends with a phrase that should mark us:

“For our God is a consuming fire.” (Hebrews 12:29)

Fire consumes. Burns away. Reduces to ash everything that isn’t fireproof.

This is the same God who appeared to Moses in a burning bush, present in the fire but not consumed by it. The same God who led Israel as a pillar of fire, guiding but also warning. The same God whose presence on Sinai made the mountain smoke and the people tremble.

The shaking and the fire are the same mercy. They remove what can’t remain. They purify what can. They expose, refine, reduce, clarify.

The consuming fire is not opposed to love. It IS love. Love that refuses to let us remain in bondage. Love that burns away the chains even when we’ve grown comfortable in them. Love that would rather shake our world than leave us trapped in it.

The Opening Is Now

The walls are cracking. Can you see it?

The systems that seemed unassailable are showing their fragility. The institutions that seemed permanent are losing their grip. The narratives that seemed unchallengeable are being questioned. The confident are becoming uncertain. The certain are becoming confused.

Sometimes the shaking is sudden; sometimes it is slow. Either way, it is certain.

This is not the end. This is the opening.

The shaking is not God abandoning His people. It’s God liberating them. It’s the removal of everything that kept them from Him. It’s the collapse of every wall between the captive and the freedom that was always available.

But the opening requires movement. The walls falling down doesn’t help you if you stay inside the rubble. The crack in the system doesn’t free you if you don’t walk through it.

The shaking creates opportunity. What you do with it determines what comes next.

Damascus Road Moment

The ground is moving. The walls are cracking. The opening is here. This is not a moment for spectating. This is a moment for decision.

STOP

“See that you do not refuse him who is speaking.” (Hebrews 12:25)

Stop refusing. Stop resisting. Stop trying to prop up what God is shaking. Stop holding onto walls that are coming down whether you release them or not. The shaking is not your enemy. Your grip on the shakeable is.

“Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” (Psalm 127:1)

Stop building what God hasn’t authorized. Stop laboring on structures that won’t survive the fire. The shaking reveals whose house you’ve been building. If it’s shaking, let it fall.

LOOK

“Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” (Hebrews 12:26)

Look at what’s shaking. Not just out there. In here. Not just Babylon’s castle. Yours. What are you trusting that isn’t Jesus Christ? What are you gripping that won’t survive the fire? What walls have you built that you’ve been calling “discernment” or “faithfulness” but are really just different bricks in a different cage?

“The heart is deceitful above all things.” (Jeremiah 17:9)

Look at your own heart honestly. The shaking exposes everyone. Including you. Including me. The question isn’t whether we built walls we shouldn’t have. The question is whether we’ll let them fall.

LISTEN

“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” (Hebrews 3:15)

Listen for His voice in the shaking. The shaking isn’t random. It isn’t chaos. It’s Him speaking. Moving. Working. Exposing. Liberating. His voice shook Sinai. His voice shook the temple when the veil tore. His voice is shaking now. Can you hear what He’s saying?

“My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not.” (Haggai 2:5)

Listen to the promise beneath the shaking. He is with you. His Spirit remains. The shaking isn’t abandonment. It’s presence, fierce and refining. The same God who shakes is the God who holds. Fear not.

LIVE

“Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe.” (Hebrews 12:28)

Today, let go of one thing you’ve been gripping that isn’t the kingdom. One wall you’ve built. One refuge you’ve constructed. One certainty you’ve clung to that isn’t Jesus Christ Himself. Open your hands. Let the shaking do its work. And grab hold of what cannot be moved.

The opening is here. The walls are falling. Tomorrow we meet the One who makes them fall, the One stronger than the strong man, the One who doesn’t just create an opening but walks through it to set the captives free.

The shaking is not the end of the story. It’s the beginning of the rescue.

Tomorrow: The Stronger One